Fearless Frank

I was on board with Fearless Frank for the first 30 minutes or so. It made me laugh a few times and had the sort of anarchic and silly energy that makes The Beatles' Help a lot of fun (it's easier to compare this film to that one, rather than anything else Jon Voight or Philip Kaufman went on to make; both went on to bigger and much better things).

But unfortunately, Fearless Frank is longer than half an hour, and I grew tired of it as it went along. For the sheer weirdness of its existence, I feel like it might be worth a curiosity watch. There were entertaining moments too (the first gag involving Frank's super punching ability made me laugh more than I'd probably be willing to admit), but not quite enough for this to feel like a "good" movie.

But hey, for what it's worth, I've definitely seen inferior superhero movies.

Starring Jon Voight and chubby comic actor Severin Darden, FEARLESS FRANK is an obscure pop morality play gone wrong. Receiving somewhat limited release, it quickly gravitated to infrequent television showings, via American-International Television.

The story concerns Darden's Doctor, who creates a perfect crimefighter, Frank. Played as immaculately cool, in a slick suit, narrow tie and shades, Frank easily bashes baddies until his ego gains the upper hand and proves his destruction.

In the end, battered and scarred, he's rowed off to quieter climes, no longer able to function as a crimefighter or -- in many ways -- a complete human being.

An interesting watch, though overall it shows largely cut-rate production values and a somewhat depressing atmosphere as Frank begins developing chinks in his armor which first pit him against the Doctor in small ways, and later lead to his falling from grace and into the hands of is enemies. The films seems to have vanished from sight, last showing on regional television in the early 1970s, slightly prior to Filmways' buy-out of AIP and their subsequent selling off of the studio's film library.

Fearless Frank is a genuinely odd early work by Philip Kaufman, featuring an early performance by Jon Voight as a flawed superhero. It attempts to recreate the feel and atmosphere of a comic book, particularly in its first half. Ultimately, it is a mixed bag that will have difficulty appealing either to children or to fans of experimental film.

If you watch only the first half hour, Fearless Frank appears to be intended as a children's film. The characters seem straight out of a Dick Tracy comic, complete with bizarrely disfigured criminals. There is a definite camp element to this section of the film, with comic narration provided by a mysterious, and melodramatic, on screen narrator with a typewriter. Similarly, a scientist's patented evil detector gives the proceedings the feel of a sixties children's matinée. Only the plot line, which revolves around a young farm boy resurrected from the dead to become a superhero suggests anything

However, the film gets increasingly odd as it goes along. A clone of the hero is introduced, and the plot shifts from a straight superhero story to one of a character corrupted by success. From here the film becomes increasingly surreal and inaccessible. In the end, it becomes more of a film for Kaufman completists than a film one would watch for enjoyment.

I loved the cartoonish aspect of the movie. Jon Voight was excellent and showed great comic flair. The movie Mystery Men reminds me of FF. I saw it as a kid and thought that it was coolest movie I had ever seen, but that was over 30 years ago. I would love to see it again.

Philip Kaufman is best known now for making art films for the masses but this early slice of madness is unlike any of his other films I've seen. Although looking very low-budget with shaky camerawork and bad on-location sound recording, this is a frenetic satire of comic book heroes with Voight as Fearless Frank and the bad False Frank. The bad guys look like they stepped out of a Dick Tracy comic with names like Screwnose and The Rat with cheap-looking makeup jobs to match. The anything-goes approach to the story seems like it was shot in an improvisational style which makes for a very disjointed film. I think Kaufman was trying to make an American pop culture satire in the style of self-indulgent European art movie directors like Jean-Luc Godard. This does not make it a good film, only an interesting one.